I wonder if, on Palm Sunday, in the reading of Saint Mark’s account of the crucifixion of Jesus; . . . I wonder if you noticed how Mark concluded that account.  . . . It made quite an impression on me when I heard it. . . . Saint Mark concludes his account of the crucifixion of Jesus by telling us that

when evening had come . . . Joseph of Arimathea . . . took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.  And Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead.  And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph.

Mark wants us to understand perfectly . . . that Jesus is dead.  . . . Because very early on the third day after Christ’s crucifixion . . . three women go to the place where Jesus had been entombed by Joseph of Arimathea . . . and they find the immense stone which had been placed to block entry to the tomb; . . . they find that the immense stone has been moved . . . so that the three women can go right in to the place where Joseph put the dead body of Jesus.  . . . But they don’t find a dead body.  Instead, they find an angel.  . . . They find an angel who has been waiting for them, and he smiles at the three women and says, rather apologetically, . . . “I know you’re here looking for Jesus of Nazareth, . . . but He is risen.  He has important things to attend to, so He’s not here.  Look, see for yourself.”  . . . And the angel lifts the shroud which had covered the dead body of Jesus . . . and there is only the cold stone beneath it.  And Mary Magdalene snatches the shroud out of the angel’s hand and gathers it up and clutches it to her breast.  . . . And the angel smiles again at the women and says, “But even though Jesus couldn’t remain to greet you Himself, He wanted me to tell you to go and tell His disciples and Peter that He is going down to Galilee; and you will see Him there as He promised.”  . . . And then the angel isn’t there(!) . . . and the three women run from the tomb; . . . the three women run from the tomb “and they said nothing to anyone,” Mark tells us, . . . “they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”

    A rather peculiar way for Saint Mark to end his Gospel, don’t you think?  To end an account about Jesus . . . with no real resolution as to how it all turned out!  . . . But, you see, if you have been reading what Mark calls “The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” which Mark has written to teach you the essence of the Christian Faith . . . and you come to the part where it says three times that Jesus is dead . . . but the tomb is empty and the women have run off with the secret, . . . when you close the Gospel book and look up at me to ask how the story ends . . . the thing I will say to you is that “I have seen Him; I have seen the risen Jesus!”  . . . And I have.

    Saint Mark ends his Gospel the way he does because the Christian faith is not gotten from a book.  You don’t learn about the Christian Life by reading books or by communing with God on the golf course or by some trout stream.  . . . Saint Mark ends his Gospel the way he does because the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is that faith in Him is a living Faith.

    In its uncanny inability to distinguish commentary from self-advertisement, The Daily Star ran a “guest commentary” (so called) in section D of its edition for this weekend, April 11th and 12th.  The author of that “commentary” (so called) displays a towering ignorance of Holy Scripture (although he claims to have been raised a Baptist) and arrives at the conclusion that the Festival of Easter is objectionable because “It celebrates the death of Jesus nearly to the exclusion of his life.”  We would be better off, the author decides, if we emphasized the teachings of Jesus rather than His death.  . . .  You will notice at once that the author of this little article is quite wrong about Easter.  The Festival of Easter is not a celebration of Christ’s death; . . . it is the celebration of Christ’s defeat of death!  So that even though the three women ran from the tomb unable to speak of what they did not comprehend, the fact of the Resurrection could not be hidden.  Christ is risen; not dead but risen!  And it has made a difference in trillions upon trillions of lives over the centuries.

    Because, you see, when I place the sacred Bread of the Altar into your hand and tell you that it is the Body of Christ, . . . I’m not speaking to you in figures; . . . I’m not giving you a metaphor by which you can encounter the deathless ideas of a man who is now dead.  . . . When I place the sacred Bread of the Altar into your hand and tell you that it is the Body of Christ . . . I’m not speaking to you in figures; . . . I am placing into your hand the living Presence of Jesus, Who died upon the Cross so that you might come to Life; . . . Who is risen so that you might see Him just as He promised.  . . . Nor is Christ Jesus a disembodied spirit Who wafts about as if He were a ghost.  Christ is risen!  He is a flesh and blood Person Who is in union with God the Father and inhabits both realities:  . . . Who inhabits the physical reality of time and spatial relationships . . . and simultaneously inhabits the divine reality which our eyes and intellect can “see” but not comprehend.  . . . And when I place the sacred Bread of the Altar into your hand . . . the living Jesus touches you with His Flesh, and He imbues you with His sacred Life in the Wine that is His Blood.  . . . Jesus can do that in the Sacrament because even though He were dead, He is risen!

    Because, you see, even though the three women were so overcome by fear that they fled from the empty tomb to say “nothing to anyone”, . . . the Tradition is in universal agreement that Mary Magdalene, in her flight, encountered Jesus.  She practically blundered into Him.  And after a moment’s confusion Mary recognizes Jesus, . . . and it makes a difference in her life; . . . she is filled with joy and is afraid no more.  . . . And next Sunday Saint John will tell us that in the evening of that same day . . . Jesus shows up in Jerusalem and has a bite to eat with His disciples, . . . and it makes a difference in their life; . . . they are filled with joy and afraid no more.  And Saint Luke tells us about two disciples who were sorrowful over the death of Jesus and discouraged that He had failed to fulfill their hopes . . . and they meet a man with whom they share a meal . . . but recognize that the man is Jesus Himself when He blesses and breaks the bread, . . . and it makes a difference in the life of those disciples; . . . they are filled with joy and discouraged no more.  . . . In fact, there is no time in the history of the Church over these past two thousand years when there have not been men and women, both of faith and of doubt, who have not encountered the risen and living Jesus.  . . . Some of those encounters have been dramatic, . . . both visual and auditory; . . . other encounters have been of a simpler kind, encounters in which only Christ’s Presence has been felt and acknowledged, . . . even in something as simple as sacred Bread and sacred Wine.  . . . And it has always made a difference . . . to individuals and to the world.

    Every few months there are news accounts of Muslim pilgrimages to the tomb of Mohammed or some other dead prophet.  We hear of these things because they usually involve the trampling of women and children in the crush of religious fervor.  . . . There aren’t any stories like that about Christians.  . . . There aren’t any stories like that about Christians because there is no tomb of Jesus.  He is risen!  So there is no Christian shrine that you are expected to visit before you die, . . . except that each Sunday you’re expected to come to the church . . . where no one is ever trampled by unmanageable crowds!  . . . You are expected to gather here at the church week by week because of what the angel says to the women today, . . . “tell [the disciples of Jesus] and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.”  . . . You see, Jesus gathered to Himself disciples; . . . Jesus gathered to Himself a community . . . a family . . . an ecclesia; . . . a Church; … Jesus gathered to Himself a sacred community so that we can receive the divine grace He communicates . . . and so that we can wantonly bestow God’s mercy, forgiveness, love, and compassion on all the rest of the world; . . . so that we can interrupt the world in their trampling of women and children . . . and show them Jesus.

    We are the Church because just as He did at the tomb on Easter Day, . . . Jesus calls us together; . . . Jesus calls us together because He has something to say to us, . . . and it will make a difference.  For, even though He was dead, Christ is risen!  Alleluia!